Raleigh News and Observer

August 7 2002
Mark H. Creech

Raleigh — As has been widely reported, three students, along with two leaders of the Virginia-based Christian organization The Family Policy Network, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against UNC-Chapel Hill. The suit opposes a summer reading requirement that incoming freshmen and transfer students read “Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations” by Michael Sells.

The suit alleges that UNC-Chapel Hill infringes upon the religious free exercise of its students by forcing them to study Islam against their will. It alleges that the reading program violates a longstanding court ban on state-funded universities requiring students to study religious material.

Moreover, the suit opposes the exclusivity of the chosen text because, it says, its one-sided presentation of Islam violates a Supreme Court requirement that state institutions be “neutral” regarding religion. Is the Family Policy Network justified in its legal action?

Recently, FPN President Joe Glover refuted claims by Chancellor James Moeser that the university is simply trying to educate students about Islam in light of events like 9/11. Glover said that the book selected by the university does not address the several passages in the Quran that contain “vitriol and hatred toward Christians and Jews.”

Is Glover correct? Most definitely! In some places the Quran clearly commands offensive warfare against those who reject Islam. For instance Surahs 9:5 and 29 say, “Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem…Fight those who believe not in God nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden by God and His apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth (even if they are) of the people of the book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the jizya (tribute) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The assigned reading omits any comment on these texts.

“Anyone who reads this book to learn what religious issues precipitated 9/11 still won’t know what they were after reading this book,” Glover rightly contends.

The university’s supposed commitment to heightening a student’s awareness of different cultures and religions to foster greater understanding is faulty at best if students are given a one-sided view.

Michael Sells promotes specific passages of the Quran as “poetic and intensely evocative, beautiful meditations, comparable in many ways to the Psalms of David and other classics of world literature.” Such a view certainly gives students the impression that the Quran is simply a glorious piece of literature, when really its essential purpose is to establish the basic tenants of the political, social and religious values of the Islamic faith — a faith that actually orders the persecution of nonbelievers.

When a student can take this kind of course as an elective, that’s academic freedom. But when a student is required to take it, that’s a form of indoctrination. And that is clearly the error in UNC’s position. Of course, some might point to a new option regarding the reading requirement: students are given the option of not reading the book. Yet students who refuse to read the book on religious grounds are still required to attend book discussion groups and write a one-page paper defending their own deeply held religious beliefs.

This serves to pit students with religious views contrary to Islam against fellow students, faculty and members of the administration who either subscribe to Muslim views or sympathize with those who do. What student wants to have to start his college experience that way?

Our state is indebted to the Family Policy Network for standing up for the rights of the students named as plaintiffs as well as the students who fear it’s too great a risk for them to speak out. Furthermore, we are indebted to them for pointing out a double standard: If we promote Islam we’re being informed, but if we suggest Christianity has merit then we are narrow-minded and bigoted.

(The Rev. Mark H. Creech is executive director of the Raleigh-based Christian Action League of North Carolina Inc.)